What Your Child Needs to Know About Their Social Media Presence for College Admission and Professional Life

Social media has grown into something that could make or break you in the professional world. When you first made your Facebook account and were a young teen, you may not have been thinking too hard about what you were putting online, because you weren’t aware that it could someday be seen by a potential employer. But once you begin looking at colleges and applying to jobs, it’s important to keep in mind that they will see your social media. It’s a very good idea to start cleaning up your Facebook and Instagram to better cater to a professional audience. This may mean deleting old posts and pictures, unadding people who you are no longer in contact with, and several other steps.

You could always change the privacy settings on your accounts, but that also means you can’t use your accounts to promote yourself. Promoting yourself through social media means that you are showing potential employers the goals you have achieved as a student. Remember, employers would much rather see a picture of you holding a certificate for achieving high honors than a selfie.

Promoting yourself through social media is a great skill to have. It can separate you from the competition and make you stick out to college admissions offices/potential employers. It also helps you maintain a clean public image so that no one can use anything you posted against you in the future. There have been far too many times in which people have regretted putting something inappropriate on social media because of the severe backlash it caused them. If you are worried about something you may have said online a few years ago when you were younger, here are a few websites you can use to help you during the process of cleaning up your social media presence:

10 Easy Ways To Clean Up and Curate Your Social Media

Top 25 Free or Cheap Reputation Management Web Apps

How to Clean Up Your Online Reputation

-Annika Ketchum

Boston Tutoring Services